Friday, March 11, 2011

Pink Snow

Here's just an FYI: A big part of the reason that I write a blog post is so that I can remember some of the thoughts that I have throughout the week. It's highly selfish in that respect. I have always found that when I get an idea, or I see something beautiful, or I have an incredible conversation, or I witness a remarkable act of kindness, that if I quickly write that experience down, I can imprint it on my brain in a deeper way than if I simply try to remember the episode. An even better way to imprint a thought on my mind and soul is to write an experience down, and then read it aloud, so that it re-enters my consciousness through my ears. The imprinting goes deeper and deeper, the more that repeat this process. I had a New Testament professor as an undergraduate at Macalester College in St. Paul Minnesota (Dr. Calvin Reotzel) that once gave me the great advice that, "You don't know what you think until you write about it."

So, here's the thing that I want to try to imprint on my brain - today - and that I want to try to think deeply about, and not ever forget...

As I was driving home today from Pasadena, Fuller Theological Seminary, and my Doctoral class seminar on Conflict Management, I noticed something very strange, on each side of the car, outside my driver's seat window...

Pink Snow!

Flanking each side of my car, as I bulleted up I-5, were almond trees (AMAND Trees if you are from Fresno or the Central Valley - they are aLmonds until you knock the "L" out of them...). These almond trees were in full bloom last week as I was making my way down to Fuller. The limbs of the almond trees were verdant, and heavy, with beautiful, frollicky, pink blossoms. They vaguely reminded me of the cherry blossoms that I witnessed in Washington, D.C., as a youth, that shrouded the Jefferson memorial. The pinkness was reminiscent of a well made cherries jubilee, a flock of flamingos, a fushia colored cadillac on Rodeo drive. But this pinkness was on the ground, not on the trees.

After a week of storms and wind, the almond blossoms had all been blown off of the trees, and were covering the ground in a deep, blanketing, frothy, fluffy, feathery, kind of way. I really did have to turn twice on each side to figure out what the pink coloring on the ground was. After peering for some time at this natural phenomenon, I determined, at long last that it was, in fact;

Pink Snow!

Then I quickly reflected on this verse from Paul in the book of Romans; "Ever since the creation of the world, the invisible existence of God and his everlasting power have been clearly seen by the mind's understanding of created things." (Romans 1:20).

That's all,

God created Pink Snow!! I want to remember it. Now hopefully you will too!